Whole Again
by PEACE.LOVE.MUSIC
Summary: After spending a year in Vietnam, Sodapop Curtis struggles to return to the life he put on hold when at war. Forgetting what happened overseas is no easy task. Revised edition
1. Chapter 1

_This idea took hold of my brain and demanded I write it down. S. E. Hinton said Sodapop dies in Vietnam, but she also said you could make up your own ending for him. I chose the latter. I highly recommend the book, __Dear America, Letters Home from Vietnam, __which, in part, inspired this oneshot._

_I own nothing._

**Whole Again**

"I-I've been drafted." The letter in his hands floated lazily to the ground. My heart skipped a beat and the room fell quiet. The ticking of the clock in the kitchen sounded like gunshots. I really wish I hadn't asked what was wrong.

"Drafted?" I heard Darry ask in a detached voice. My vision was tunneling and all I could see was that damn letter on the floor. I had to blink a couple times before I could see what was going on around me.

Soda looked like he was cut from paper, draft paper, to be exact. Darry stumbled over to him looking so much younger than twenty-one. His face was pale, like an old china doll's. He looked about as fragile as one too. This wasn't supposed to be happening to us. Hadn't our family been through enough? Oh God, we were too young, too scared, too broken.

My mom used to tell me sticks and stones could break my bones, but words could never hurt me. 'Drafted.' That hurt like hell.

_------------------------------------------------_

_Dear Darry and Ponyboy, _

_Merry Christmas! A truce has been negotiated for today, now who said Uncle Sam didn't care about his soldiers? They're making us a Christmas dinner, but I'll bet it pales in comparison to the one you'll be having with Mrs. Mathews. Tell her I said thanks for the cookies, they were a big hit with the guys._

_I'm going to end this now because I can barely keep my eyes open. Sing some carols for me!_

_See you in a little less than eleven months!_

_Sodapop Curtis_

I trace my finger over his signature and swallow the lump in my throat. Christmas wasn't the same this year. I thought last year was bad, but this one takes the cake. There is absolutely no merriness to be heard of. There's no use pretending we haven't fallen apart without Soda here.

_------------------------------------------_

_Dear Darry and Ponyboy, _

_I'm officially a double-digit midget! Seems like Charlie wants me to stay here forever, but there's no way I'll let him. _

_A couple days ago, I was out humping the boonies when, all of a sudden, there was an explosion. I hit the ground real fast while shrapnel was flying all over the place. I got up and saw my buddy Ellis had gotten hit and was bleeding all over the place. There was still dust and dirt all in the air, but I could see enough to know he was pretty bad off. I hollered for the medic who got dressing on him. He was crying real bad because he's got a little girl back in the States he ain't even seen yet. I can't tell you how scared I was for him at that moment, I wasn't even thinking of myself. Then the dust-off came and I got all his gear on the bird and he was taken away._

_That's the last I saw of him, but I heard he's being sent to the World. They had to remove his leg but he's expected to pull through._

_I'm scared to death, and I'm sick of this place. I just want to go home before I end up like Ellis or worse. I can't stop crying now that I thought about that day all over again. I need to get out of here. I don't think I'll ever be able to wash all the blood off._

_I'll be there in titi,_

_Sodapop Curtis_

I can't stop shaking. My brother has less than one-hundred days left and he could have been killed. Sure, he's written of some bad times before, but for some reason this time shakes me real bad. I'll write him back after I get home from work.

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

I glance in the mirror one last time before rushing out to the truck where Darry has been waiting impatiently. Soda's coming home today. I didn't sleep at all last night, I was so excited. My hands are shaking and I glance over at Darry. He smiles at me and I can tell he's just as excited.

"It's finally over," he says in disbelief. It's been one long year since we last drove to the airport. The mood has changed dramatically. I nervously fiddle with the radio the entire drive there.

We pull into the parking lot and get out and head to Gate 18, Soda's gate. Darry's smile is bright enough to light up a room and his eyes have a sparkle I haven't seen in a year. He puts his hand on my shoulder and I can't help but break out into a broad grin myself.

My entire insides are dancing as we watch the plane land. This is it. The moment I've been waiting for. Minutes are like hours as the passengers start trickling off the plane.

My heart skips a couple beats when I see a familiar face coming off the ramp. He's home. He made it home. I take off towards him and he drops his suitcase and throws his arms open. I fall into them and can't stop bawling.

"Ponyboy," he breathes, squeezing me with a bone-crushing grip. He pulls back and holds me an arms length away to look at me. "Oh God." He smiles his signature smile through his tears before pulling me back for another embrace.

"Soda." We pull apart again and turn to see Darry standing there, tears running down his cheeks. Soda falls into him and starts bawling. Darry wraps his arms around his shaking shoulders and rocks back and forth while I stand there, unsure of what happens now. Darry looks up and pulls me towards him.

In the middle of an airport, three tough greasers are bawling their eyes out. None of that matters though, because we're a family again.

--------------------------------------

My brother has been home for two months now. Darry says we need to be extra patient with him and give him time to adjust.

My handsome brother has a scar across the side of the face he refuses to talk about. If anyone asks him, he just stops talking and gets this faraway look in his eyes, which don't dance as much as they used to.

He's scarred on the insides as well. Sometimes when we're laying in bad at night, he'll tell me about Vietnam, the parts that he couldn't tell me in the letters. His voice is rough and filled with pain as he tells me about the Viet Cong and what they did to the villages.

He doesn't want to get his job back at the DX, his hands shake too much to work on cars. That's why he smokes so much now, to calm himself. He's still pretty jumpy, though. The other day a car backfired and Soda had a war flashback.

"_Snap out of it, you're home now_!" Darry had told him while keeping a firm grip on his shoulders. It didn't do much good, Soda kept hollering about Charlie coming from the North. "_C'mon Pepsi Cola, you're not there anymore," _Darry tried Dad's pet name for him, and it worked, he stopped yelling. But then he stopped talking in general.

He's the one with nightmares now. Now it's my turn to be the protector when he wakes up screaming, but I can't save him from his mind and the torment it puts him through. I wonder if my nightmares were this heart braking to deal with. I feel helpless as I try and wake him up as he screams for some guy I never heard him mention in any letter and he refuses to talk about. We're thinking about taking him to a doctor.

I hate the war for doing this to my brother. I hate the president who sent him so far away from us, and I hate the North Vietnamese for hurting my brother, both spiritually and physically. Darry says that we haven't lost him, the old Soda is still in there and every now and then we catch a little glimpse of who he used to be. Darry reassures me he'll come back to us. Maybe then, after waiting so long, we can finally be whole again.


	2. Chapter 2

_I had planned on keeping this as a oneshot, but the idea for this chapter came out of nowhere and demanded I write it down. I also fixed a few mistakes in chapter one._

_Edit: Fanfiction enjoys wrecking havoc on my stories, so this is a repost I had to edit. Sorry for the inconvience._

**I own nothing.**

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I've been back in the World for five months now. It's funny how when I was in Vietnam, this was all I wanted. I had a countdown going from day one. For an entire year, returning home was all I thought about. I didn't know this madness was waiting for me.

I actually thought things would go back to normal, and when I saw Ponyboy and Darry at the airport, it felt like I could just forget what had happened. I can never forget. My mind is still out there in a bunker, fighting that goddamned war.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. I know they're shaking anyway. The gunshot sounds far away, miles and miles away, but it's not. It came from my gun. It's right here, in this moment. I can hear a fly buzzing in the distance._

* * *

What I learned in combat will never, ever leave me. I had to live the way that I did to survive for a year, and now that it's no longer necessary to survival, I can't stop. I can't unlearn these things, no matter how hard I've tried.

I can't sleep very well at night; a habit I picked up when staying alert meant staying alive. The slightest sound wakes me up. If I finally get some sleep, it's plagued by nightmares, sending me back to the front lines of combat; nightmares that were once my reality. Nightmares I can't remember.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. They seem to know what to do. I don't even remember pulling the trigger. But I did. Time stops for a heart-wrenching second as the gun slips to the ground. Time stands so still. Everything is quiet. A body hits the ground and time lurches violently. My hands won't stop shaking._

* * *

My hands never stop shaking. I didn't even try to get my job back at the DX. As much as it hurts me to see Ponyboy having to work to help with the bills, I can't do it. I can't stop my hands from shaking. I smoke more than Pony, but it doesn't do much good. It only stops the shaking for a little bit.

I'm nervous all the time. The slightest thing can set me off. A car backfiring, footage on TV, letters from Steve, I'm like a ticking time-bomb. I can see muzzle blasts to my left and hear the screams of my unit. Even though I tell myself none of it is real, I can't help being paralyzed with fear.

Crowds make me nervous because the enemy could be hiding anywhere. I never stop watching for Charlie. Some days, I can't even leave the house. There are just too many people outside.

* * *

_­­­­­­­­I can't feel my fingers. Blood spills over them, but I don't feel its warmth. The coppery twang invades my nostrils, the deep red assaults my eyes, the pulsing claws at my ear drums. I don't feel the hands. They're on my shoulders, gripping, pulling, shaking. So much blood. It soaks into the red dirt._

* * *

There are a couple rules you learn in war right away.

1)People die.  
2)You can't change rule number one.

_­­­­­­_That's all they send us off to the front line with. Those rules don't make it any easier when your buddy is holding his stomach in his hands, fighting for air. In fact, they make you feel pretty damn helpless because you know there's nothing you can do for them.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. They're tracing a tanned face, much too young to have witnessed the violence of war, much too young to have died such a violent death. _

* * *

We were just kids, and we were out there dying. Dying too young for a reason we didn't even understand, dying violently in a country so far from home, dying together, but alone. We were jut kids.

There's a never-ending feeling of dread that accompanies everything I do. After spending a year knowing anyone could die at any second, that concept became as second-nature to me as breathing. Other soldiers-my friends-would be there, laughing, talking, _living_, and then they'd be gone. That helpless, fragile feeling would knock you down every time.

My brothers' going about their daily lives is a disruption of my own. I never know if they'll come back. I always assume the worst; that they got into some kind of accident and died. This overwhelming feeling of dread consumes me, eating away from the inside out.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel the soft skin beneath them; I don't feel it growing colder. The hands on my shoulders move to my arms and drag me away from the small, crumpled body._

* * *

Crumpled bodies invade my dreams. The ones I remember, that is. There was one night where I dreamt of Dally crumpling under the lights, but instead of a streetlight, it was light from an explosion. We weren't in Tulsa anymore.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. It feels like cotton has been stuffed in my ears. Everything, the screams, the voices, the cries, is muffled. Lips are moving but all I hear is the steady thudding of my heart. Cotton is in my ears. _

* * *

My hearing ain't been so good since I got back. The doc says all those explosions and helicopters ruined my ears. He says it won't ever be as good as it was before, but it comes and goes. Sometimes, it feels like there's a wad of cotton stuffed in my ears.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel the sharp points of the crucifix around my neck digging into them. Oh God, what've I done? Where is God in a time like this? Oh God._

* * *

'There are no atheists in fox holes.' My daddy used to say that. I never fully understood that until I was out there in the rice paddies, feeling so exposed and vulnerable.

'War is hell.' That's another one you can't even begin to understand until you're out there, watching people torture and kill other people. You don't know what hell is until you see some of the things I saw; until you do what I've done just to stay alive. I can still remember my first kill. I felt dirty, not the 'I haven't been able to shower in a week' dirty, but the kind where a shower isn't going to make you feel better. After a while, you just become numb. You don't think about the person you're killing. You can't afford to. War is hell.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. They're clenched in fists as I double over and heave. I can still smell the coppery blood; still taste its metallic twang in the back of my throat. It's all over me. The very thought makes me sick all over again._

* * *

Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat with a sick twisting of my stomach. That's how I know I just had a nightmare. I've been remembering bits and pieces of them for the past week, but it's still fuzzy.

I can feel a memory clawing its way to the front of my mind. I don't know if it's something I want to remember.

* * *

_I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel the tears sliding down my face. I can't feel my shoulders shaking. I can't feel anything. I can't. I'm a monster. I…_

* * *

Darrel Curtis arrives home from work and enters the small house, mindful not to slam the screen door knowing it will startle Sodapop. He has to be careful of many things, as his brother suffers from what the doctors simply called shell shock, or post-Vietnam syndrome. The other day Ponyboy had been watching the news and footage of the war had triggered a flashback for the young veteran. It was hours later before he had stopped shaking.

So Darry has been careful. He keeps the television's volume low when he watches the news. He's careful not to walk up behind his brother. He remembers the time he did and the blonde nearly jumped through the roof. It would've been comical if it wasn't for the terrified look in Soda's eyes.

He tries not to force his brother to do anything he doesn't want to, despite how much he thinks the young man needs to be outside and not on the couch all day. Darry does his best to keep his youngest brother hopeful after another day with no progress. He frequently reminds Ponyboy that the brother they knew from before is still in there, and he promises everything is going to be better someday. But after so long, Darry knows his promise sounds hollow.

A low moan comes from Soda and Ponyboy's shared bedroom. Darry rushes there, forgetting to be quiet, and opens the door.

Soda is sitting against the wall with his knees pulled to his chest, his long fingers tugging at his blonde hair. The tough war veteran has tears streaming down his face as he quietly moans again.

"Soda, it's okay, you're not there anymore," Darry soothes, while approaching his huddled brother cautiously.

"I'm a monster," he whispers, frightened. Darry drops down in front of him and carefully places a comforting hand on his shoulder. He doesn't understand what Soda means by this.

"You're not a monster," he reassures gently. "What are you talking about?"

"I-I killed her. She couldn't have been more than six and I killed her. I killed a _child._" Soda's confession is ripped from somewhere deep within. He slowly raises his eyes and makes contact with stunned blue ones. He wants his brother to assure him he is not a monster, that he is a good person who was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, he's looking for something, anything, that proves him wrong. But when all he sees is bewilderment in those blue eyes, he knows nothing can make this better, and he feels dirty.

Darry doesn't know what to do. Soda, his kind-hearted little brother, just admitted he killed a child. Besides opening and closing his mouth like a fish, all he can do is stare into those wounded brown eyes. Soda drops his head and tries to push Darry away, but Darry holds on and finds his voice. "What happened?"

Soda shakes his head and pulls his legs closer, trying to fold in on himself and disappear. Darry places a hand on the back of his neck and rubs it gently. Soda's fists are clenched so tightly he can't feel his fingers. "The Viet Cong, they gave her a grenade. She was walking towards us with a grenade. I had to. She was going to kill us. I shot-"

Darry had to strain to hear the muffled voice that broke off with sobs towards the end. It feels like ice water is trickling down his spine and his tongue feels too fat and thick to say anything. Not that he knows what to say. He's well aware that nothing can make this better.

Darry doesn't think anything will get better.


End file.
